The Education Not Incarceration campaign was launched by the Black Radical Congress in 2001. This project struggles against the growing Prison-Industrial-Complex, defends and struggles to improve public education. The first activity of this campaign was an effort to federalize police murder, brutality and misconduct prosecutions. BRC members and supporters began with a petition demonstrating the community¹s concern regarding racist police murder and brutality that was intended be taken to the World Conference Against Racism and U.S. Congresspersons. With the attack of 9/11 and the U.S. invasion in Afghanistan BRC shifted focus to stop the invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq with the launch of the Fightback Campaign.

The Education not Incarceration campaigns intends to repeal injust mandatory minimum sentencing guidelines imposed by Congress limiting judges discretion in sentencing.

New York and Philadelphia local organizing committees of the BRC have been involved struggles against the privatization of schools in New York City and Philadelphia. The Philadelphia local organizing committee has hosted several amazing day conferences educating and mobilizing the community in the BRC¹s Education not Incarceration campaign.

The Black Radical Congress opposes the immoral, classist and racist application of the death penalty.

The Black Radical Congress stands for the freedom of Mumia Abu-Jamal.

Excerpts for the Freedom Agenda:

V. We will struggle to ensure that all people in society receive free public education.

We affirm that all are entitled to free, quality public education throughout their lifetime. Free education should include adult education and retraining for occupational and career changes. We will fight to ensure that curricula in U.S. schools, colleges and universities are anti-racist, anti-sexist and anti-homophobic, and for curricula that adequately accommodate students' needs to express and develop their artistic, musical or other creative potential.

VIII. We will fight to abolish police brutality, unwarranted incarceration and the death penalty.

We are determined to end police brutality and murder:

a. We will fight for strong civilian oversight of police work by elected civilian review boards that are empowered to discipline police misconduct and enforce residency requirements for police officers;

b. we seek fundamental changes in police training and education to emphasize public service over social control as the context in which law enforcement occurs, and to stress respect for the histories and cultures of the U.S.-born and immigrant communities served.

c. we seek to limit incarceration to the most violent criminals, only those who have clearly demonstrated their danger to the lives and limbs of others;

d. regarding non-violent offenders, we demand that they be released and provided with appropriate medical, rehabilitative and educative assistance without incarceration.

e. we will struggle for abolition of the death penalty, which has been abolished in the majority of developed nations. In the U.S., the history of the death penalty's application is inextricable from the nation's origins as a slave state. Since Emancipation, it has been a white supremacist tool intended to maintain control over a population perceived as an alien, ongoing threat to the social order. Application of the death penalty, which is highly discriminatory on the basis of color and class, violates international human rights law and must be eliminated.

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